The Cave
No words survive here, only echoes. Echoes of our hopes, of our plans, of our failures. What we thought we might do when we came here is little more than a shadow; it flickers on the walls for a moment and when we turn to look, it is gone. Doubts swell up and bounce off the walls until they become so loud they can no longer be heard.
Once we’ve entered, we can not return the way we came; the only way out is to descend into the darkness and through to the other side. When we emerge, we will breathe a new life, one where we are able to push a bit harder, and suffer a bit more. It is a better world, one with opportunity. One where we can make things happen because we have discovered a new limit of our will.
Pushing deeper into The Cave is learned over time. When we first enter, we will find ourselves in a small cavern with no apparent exit. As we train and explore its darkest corners, we discover a passage. We gather our courage and slip into a larger, darker cavern to explore. Beyond that, there lies another. Each holds its own unique strain of suffering, but with it comes also a degree of control; the choice to enter is ours and ours alone.
When I’m strong, my mind yearns for the cleansing qualities of The Cave. I feel almost the master of my pain, that I command its ebbs and flows. Even on days that don’t require it, I will hurt myself just to prove I can. When I’m chasing my fitness, however, I approach it with the same reluctance I had as a child when made to eat my vegetables. The suffering flows over me in waves and I am at the mercy of its current.
My training this summer has been erratic and unstructured. I’ve had some great periods, and just as I’ve neared a goal, either illness or travel unexpectedly reared up before me and interrupted my progress. A week away from the bike means another two weeks before I find myself back to where I was. Two weeks of drifting like a leaf in the current. Two weeks of knowing what lies beyond, unable to reach it.
Then the breakthrough, and into the next cavern. It is only through contemplating the darkest corners of The Cave that we discover its deepest passages and it is within the deepest passages that we may discover our purest selves.
Have courage and follow the path into The Cave. Vive la Vie Velominatus.
The cave is the reason I love to ride.
To find the cave, I’ve discovered that I need to empty my jersey pockets of the comforts that can turn a ride into a sunday stroll down the boulevard. Things like gels, snacks, music, etc can dampen the feel of the ride lull you into an almost sleep-like state and trick you into believing you’re all V.
love the article, looking forward to recovering from injury and perhaps revisiting the cave.
by the way, thats sean kelly above not robert millar. During his commentary on yesterday´s vuelta, as riders approached 100km/hr, the other commentator asked him what was your top speed Sean? 103, 104km/hr? Kelly casually replied “124km/hr”, then quickly moved back to the vuelta..
I believe it is Millar; Kelly never rode w/LeMond on the Zed team. They do have similar expressions when in the cave!
@john
Words of the highest quality as always.
Occasionally, a troll stumbles across this place, and doesn’t get it. They tell us to ride more and type less, they think we care more about how we look than how we ride, they do make me laugh. They don’t get we want to look pro, because of how the icons of the sport ride or rode. If just a drop of that V could touch us and inspire us, how much more ecstatic we would be. The rule that transcends all rules, is of course rule V
“If you have everything under control, you’re not moving fast enough.”
Mario Andretti
@john
Sean Kelly never rode for Team Z, that’s Millar.
“the choice to enter is ours and ours alone.”
So, so true… I look back and although memories for pain are dim (other wise why would we go climb the mountain next year?), I wonder if I ever entered the deepest darkest sanctum in the pain cave? The room with little air, no light, and no seeming exit!
Im sure I got close but the funny part is I just can not replay the tape and it makes me wonder if I should have pushed myself more and harder. Would I have been first that day on the mountain? Was that spring snow storm an excuse for 6th? Was 5 th in that sprint really my best….?
One thing for sure, after bike racing there is nothing that gets me past the waiting room when I go spelunking in the pain cave!
Nice one Frank.
Very nice, Frank!
Yep, put me in the camp of unstructured summer riding. I’d been doing a lot of 2-3 hour rides, but mainly just training tempo. I thought I was in okay shape, knew (and was okay with) not being in the best shape.
Then CX training rides began and I tried to ride with the As/1s. Hmm, a very quick reminder that form is laking and boy, does it hurt to enter the Cave when you haven’t visited it enough lately. Getting back acquainted is such a strange experience. It really hurts, but even single time you nearly blow up, it gets easier and hurts less. What a conundrum, but I guess that is why we keep at it.
I stand corrected – Millar not Kelly, though i think he was channeling Kelly on that particular visit to the cave!
@john
And that looks like Lemond behind him with Frank’s drop-in Scott bars. And yes, he does appear to be channeling Kelly.
@john
Yes, Kelly was a frequenter of the pain cave, but that is Millar and what he’s got there is V Face.
Kelly could do it too, that’s for sure.
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@meursault
Case in point.
@meursault
Seconded.
I think… no, strongly feel a big reason I’ve been able to latch on to cycling so quickly is the journey I took through the cave on my mountain bike back in third weekend on June. Half way through the Test of Metal (67k 1.2k climbing), just after Bonk hill I cramped, hard, and continued to cramp for the remaining 27k of the race.
The man with the hammer (I did not know his name at the time, how quickly i’ve learned) did not just bop me on the head but shattered me from the waist down with the full force of his hammer at my hubris for thinking I had prepared properly. I tripped, and stumbled (it was a mountain bike race so Rule #69 does not apply as stricltly, but it should), and screamed alone, silently, to myself until I passed through to the light.
So with that knowledge of just how much I can hurt, and suffer, and still keep moving forward I was able to rip 122 km with 1.7 km of climbing this weekend in just over 4hrs.
Go into the cave. What’s in there? Only what you take with you.
VLVV
I realised this year that the mental fight with myself, my pain cave, is one of the big reasons why I have come to love riding Europe’s high mountains. I’m not a climber; not built like one at all, but they have come to occupy the focus of pretty much all my goals. I’ve discovered more about my ability to suffer, to go to a place I didn’t know I could, on mountains in two weeks over the last two years than in any riding I’ve done. The realisation is a glorious thing, almost a sense of not knowing oneself at all, of being able to overrule my body. I’m not kidding myself; days spent in 39×27 are nothing to brag about, but getting home knowing that I’ve conquered myself; that’s special. Pain is our raisin d’être. It’s what we are here for.
VLVV
The question, quiet and infrequent at first but louder and incessant as you go deeper.
For me the surefire and fastest route into the cave is on the rollers but there’s nothing like a headwind on a cold grey day in flat open countryside, the North Cambridgeshire Fens or the Nord-Pas de Calais, to bring home the realisation that despite riding in a group, you are alone on the bike.
Is this what the entrance to the cave looks like?
@Chris
Fuck’in spot on post!
@meursault
Wow! Great posts. Well said! This is a great article and really hitting home around here.
@Gianni
Yup! Has to be LeMan in the background with the WCRR stripes and jersey. Must be 1990 then, huh? Or I suppose it could be late 1989.
@Mike_P
This. To a T. Two years ago I would never have dreamed of taking off on my bike with the intention of riding 225km over two iconic TDF Cols. Fuck, at that point my idea of a day on my bike in the mountains started on the chairlift and finished with a beer and a fag.
VLVV indeed!
On a slightly different note but, to me, equally inspiring, a fiend of mine set off at 0500 yesterday on her motor bike to ride to Monaco. She’s always dreamed of doing it but never quite got round to learning to ride a bike. She passed her test in April this year, brought a bigger bike and set off yesterday by herself. She’s meeting her husband on Wednesday in casino Square – they honeymooned there.
Pain Cave, pain cave, O’ how I hate thee. ‘Ceptin’, of course, when there is a wheel dangling in front of me. It’s funny how I’ve been a “half-stepper” at everything all of my life. Except when I get on a road bike. Core exercises? Blow me. Post ride stretching? Blow me. Off-season weight training? Blow me, blow me, blow me.*
Ride at or above threshold for 90 minutes trying to hold that guy’s wheel who is always faster than you? I’m in.
*Yeah, yeah, I know, all that stuff will make me stronger and prevent injury (which I’m suffering from right now) but Homey don’t play dat shit. I just wanna ride!
Yup, that’s Millar, with the sleeve belonging to Greg Lemond. It’s the Tour de France in 1990 as Lemond won the Worlds in the fall of 1989 and would still be wearing the rainbow bands in July of 1990. In the background is Claude Criquelion who won the Belgian RR championship in the early summer of 1990 before the Tour.
@wiscot Alright, I’ll bite. I guess that one could say with a little certainty that that is Claude Criquielion in the background. Kind of looks like his ear.
Here’s another photo with the same upper left logo as the one form the tdf in 1990 as opposed to the earlier photo I posted.
That’s just cool in so many ways.
@wiscot, @Buck Rogers
@wiscot nails it. Unbelievable. You can see the yellow of Claude’s fork in the lead photo.
Love the article. Very timely for me right now as I complete my final two weeks of training and then taper for a ride with more climbing in it than I have ever done. I will definitely be exploring the dark corners of the cave over the next two weeks.
My particular cave this year was the Flat out in the Fens ride. 177 Km ride, after about 95 Km was averaging around 30 kph, then hit the turn into the teeth of a Fen blow – last 70 Km or so was struggling to grind out 17 kph and no one to work with. For those not familiar with the Fens they are flat, no trees, no protection from wind when it blows. Merciless at the back end of a ride. At least with hills there is the satisfaction of getting to the top, on the flat into a gale there is just suffering. VLVV.
Goodness, that Lotto cap! I love the colors.
Anyone tried the new-style “leg power band” bib shorts vs. bibs with a silicone leg gripper? Weighing the pros/cons as I’m in the market for some new, simple black bibs. I don’t mind the grippers at all, but seems like a lot of makers and even pro kits are moving to the leg band zone…
Chris, yup, me too regarding the new limits of what can be accomplished on a bike. Not all that long ago, 25km seemed epic to me. I really love how well cycling fits in with life. Extra time, you can ride like mad and develop great fitness. Less time, your rides are shorter but they fill you with even more pleasure because they’re a gift, not a grind. And now instead of dabbling in cross I’m actually practice my technique and can feel myself getting better by the day. Nice to be years past when I really competed at and practiced sports and yet be back at being eager to improve.
Any ride makes me feel better mentally and physically, even if it’s just a quick 45 minutes in the woods. The only downside (maybe!) is that I ride daily, I can also justify daily post-ride recovery drinks. I reassure the VMH that I have some German ancestry so it’s only natural, but she doesn’t always buy it.
whoa, for a minute there I thought I’d surfed to a craiglist personals ad for BSDM…
@john
Ok, 124 km/ph is about 75 mph. I’ve done 80km’ph and that scared me shitless. I don’t even drive 75 mph!
@wiscot
I’m with you there, I’ve hit 85 kph and was wondering where my parachute arrester was and my spare underpants (had I been wearing the first pair to have some to change).
@john
Surely that is too low. It must have been 130 (as in, “one-terty”).
@Nate
Perhaps more apropos would be “One Turdie” as surely we’d shit ourselves at that speed.
Great words as ever mostly reflected on the faces of the lone breakaways that have won the last 3 days of this Vuelta…i find myself reading this and looking forwards to winter training…no turbo just Rule #9 riding!
@frank
A Merckx.
@frank
If I ever lined up next to a guy at a race looking like this my first response would be shiiiiiitt…..
The cave. Very different than The Tunnel. I enjoy the cave, but I enjoy putting others in it more.
And when you come out the other side you have something that looks like Klaas Jan van der Weij’s 1991 photo of LeMan.
http://www.velominati.com/anatomy-of-a-photo/anatomy-of-a-photo-depletion/
@frank
Was listening to the Eurosport commentary at the Dauphine Libre during the descent of the Joux Plane this year and Kelly was asked the same question. Again he said 124km/r and went on to explain that this was during the 1984 Tour on the descent to Morzine. Then he paused and added “I was passed by a Swiss rider (Niki Ruttimann?) and I couldn’t keep up with him”
I did 80km/r on the northern descent of the Cairn o’Mount on the Cogal and felt that I was most definitely getting near my maker. I was going in a straight line and the pros are going round corners, eating their lunch and shaking out the old legs at that speed.
I know it probably should not be mentioned, in respect of Rule #42, but the leaders were clocked at 115km/hr at ironman 70.3 european championships in Wiesbaden last month…
Best time in the cave is when it’s time to come out.
@frank
Nice one Nate and fine distinction Frank! My favorite video is of a long forgotten day in the tour of Kelly’s off the front cresting of some col in the rain and descending (on gravel), leaving the moto’s behind on every curve at heart stopping speed…
I would pay if any of you vid/web heads can find that one!
Excellent analogy “The Cave”.
Got to love the cave as a way of finding out “who’s who in the zoo!”
With my ongoing herniated disk issue, I often dabble in the cave diving for want of a better term. Been doing long rides and short rides to try and mix up the pain threshhold. Recently two friends, both stronger riders, arranged for a 80km ride on my birthday, first dozen kms were obviously at frenetic pace as one wants to do to impress fellow riders. The three of us began to climb our local “hill” of some 4kms @around 11% and the shit hit the fan. Torch went on, clutch went in and I tried desperately to hang with the other two. THey realised this and just help pace to the top which subconsciously helped me through the cave.
The next 60kms was a breeze.
Motto : Sometimes you also need friends to guide you through that cave as well.
Words from Leman;
“One thing that cycling has taught me is that if you can achieve something without a struggle, it’s not going to be satisfying.”
I has to go and enter my cave! It’s been a while since I’ve been in there.
@Cyclops
I’m sitting here putting off my core work, so boring.
@Ron
The band grippers are fine, maybe a little hard to adjust to length, and tend to squeeze my legs more.
@DerHoggz
I’m actually working on my core.
It’s 3:30AM tuesday morning here and I’m awake, preparing to enter the darkness. There is a local group ride starting at 5:30 to blast up some of the “hills”in the area- 25 miles, 1500+ up. For a flatlander like myself that is something. Tonight a club 6.7 mile time trial. I visit the cave every tuesday just to see whats new. I’ve found many new corners and crevices of my cave this year, sometimes leaving my lunch/breakfast behind.
In my cave, I find out who I truly am
I remember seeing Millar winning a stage of the Kellogg/Milk Tour of Britain in the Manchester sometime in the late 80s or early 90s. It was my first live pro road race event. I couldn’t believe the speed at which he completed the circuit of the city after a day climbing in the Yorkshire Dales. I didn’t think that people could go that fast on a bike, and he was supposed to be a climber! He was deep within the cave. Love the man.
@DerHoggz
Makes sense to me. Never seen a junk yard dog do a plank…
JYD? Man, I miss WWF from the mid80s.
Anyone know what is going on with the dude who as going to ride the routes of all three GTs this year? Think he was a British gent & saw a short report on him during the TdF.